Vitol Offers Urals Crude; Qua Iboe February Exports Seen Stable

Trafigura Beheer BV withdrew its bid for North Sea Forties crude at a lower level than yesterday. Vitol Group failed to sell Russian Urals blend in northwest Europe, the first offer in one week.

Nigeria will keep exports of benchmark Qua Iboe for February unchanged from the previous month at 11 cargoes of 950,000 barrels each, including two lots deferred from January, according to a loading program obtained by Bloomberg News.

North Sea

Trafigura withdrew its bid for Forties at 20 cents a barrel more than Dated Brent for loading on Jan. 6 to Jan. 9, according to a Bloomberg survey of traders and brokers monitoring the Platts window. That’s 10 cents less than an offer by Mercuria Energy Trading SA yesterday that was also withdrawn.

Brent for February settlement traded at $110.46 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange at the close of the window, compared with $109.37 in the previous session. The March contract was at $110.15, a discount of 31 cents to February.

The Aframax tanker Asahi Princess left the Ekofisk crude loading terminal in Teesside, U.K., yesterday for Trieste in Italy, the second vessel to ply this route in December, ship-tracking data on Bloomberg show.

Brent blend was also shipped to the Italian port this month, according to the data. The grade typically stays in northwest Europe and is usually processed by refiners in the U.K., Germany and the Netherlands, data compiled by Bloomberg News show.

Urals/Mediterranean

Vitol failed to sell 100,000 metric tons of Urals for Dec. 29 to Jan. 2 loading at $1.40 a barrel less than Dated Brent on a delivered basis to Rotterdam, the survey showed. The grade was last bid at a discount of $1.50 on Dec. 12.

Iraq resumed flows to Turkey’s port of Ceyhan via an alternative pipeline due to fault in the main link, according to a statement from state-owned North Oil Co. Test pumping was at 50,000 to 100,000 barrels a day since midday and will reach normal levels of 325,000 barrels a day later today.

West Africa

Nigeria will reduce exports of Bonny Light crude to four cargoes in February, one less than January, according to a shipping schedule.

Africa’s largest oil producer will also ship five lots of Forcados, four Brass, three Bonga, two Okono, one each of Abo and EA, according to loading plans. The size of shipments range from 250,000 barrels to 1 million barrels.

Ghana will maintain exports of Jubilee crude for February unchanged from January at three consignments of 950,000 barrels each, a separate plan showed.